Neil Midgley writes about media for The Daily Telegraph, in between ice skating and tweeting - he's @neilmidgley on Twitter

BBC staffers are to suggest where the axe will fall (Photo: Stephen Lock)

Lord Reith thought, perhaps naively, that it was enough for the BBC to educate, inform and entertain.

The current BBC charter, by contrast, sets out six public purposes for the corporation. In case that wasn't enough, current director-general Mark Thompson has put forward five new editorial priorities for the BBC, in his strategy document Putting Quality First. The BBC Trust, led by chairman Sir Michael Lyons, must have felt a bit left out, because in their response to that strategy, they found it necessary to write down four "priority areas" on which the BBC must concentrate.

By this point, you may be expecting three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. But no.

Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC Trust chairman, has today written a letter to his director-general, Mark Thompson, laying down the expected timetable for financial decisions in the wake of last October's licence fee settlement. Like all BBC Trust documents, it is riveting, and never more so than in its first sentence:

'Following the agreement in October last year of a new licence fee settlement for the BBC, the BBC will have at least 16 per cent less income in 2016 than it does in 2011.'

Sounds tough, doesn't it? The problem is, it's not true. In fact, the licence fee is being held at precisely its current level for the next six years. Though the BBC will lose the extra money that is currently provided by the FCO for the World Service, commercial revenues from BBC Worldwide will almost certainly rise. So the BBC's overall income could well not… Read More

Although Miriam O'Reilly has just won an employment tribunal against the BBC on the basis of ageism, she is clearly not what you'd call 'old'. And most certainly not ugly. But as a result of this verdict, those of us who like our TV presenters, well, young and pretty, are facing dark times ahead.

In its judgment, the three-member tribunal said: "We do not doubt that older women have faced particular disadvantage within the broadcast media."

They also said: "The wish to appeal to a primetime audience, including younger viewers, is a legitimate aim. However, we do not accept that it has been established that choosing younger presenters is required to appeal to such an audience."

Fortunately for lecherous old dogs like me, the tribunal's outpourings do not constitute binding law. But they will certainly have an impact on how the BBC and other TV companies – not to mention other image-consciou… Read More

At the press conference announcing the results of the BBC's strategy review this morning, it was hard to believe that this was the same process whose initial results were announced back in March.

That first report made lots of specific recommendations (even if many of them were later abandoned): closing BBC 6 Music, closing the Asian Network, closing BBC Switch, capping the amount spent on sports rights, drastically scaling back American imports, switching £600m a year into higher quality programmes.

Today's effort, by contrast, was much shorter on detail and vision. There were some nuggets: BBC executive salaries will now be published in much narrower bands (increments of a maximum of £5,000). But unless you care whether long-form BBC TV PSB content is allowed to be disaggregated before being offered on demand, this wasn't a report for the fact-hunter.

Instead, it announced another review, to be published next year. The BBC is to… Read More

Today the BBC has released its TV and radio highlights for the festive period. One of them – in fact, probably No2 on most people's list, after the return of Upstairs, Downstairs – is a new four-part adaptation of the story of the Nativity.

It's scripted by Tony Jordan, a former EastEnders supremo who was also responsible for the creation of Gene Hunt, the sexist, racist, homophobic 70s police detective in Life on Mars. The BBC is nonetheless at pains to point out that the Nativity is a 'faithful adaptation' of the traditional story – and, by all accounts, this has been a labour of love for Jordan.

Of course there's always religion on the BBC at Christmas, with The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Midnight Mass etc. But this new version of the Nativity is the first time I can remember that the actual meaning of Christmas has been respectfully… Read More

Patrick Foster at The Times did a rather good interview this morning with Peter Fincham, director of television at ITV. You can read it here if you have access to the Times website behind their paywall.

The piece recites ITV's not insignificant list of recent drama hits – not just the monolithic Downton Abbey, but also The Little House, Whitechapel and DCI Banks. But even though ITV has often beaten BBC1 in the ratings with these shows, Fincham canvasses the idea of scheduling co-operation between the two broadcasters – so that each of them could maximise their audience without fierce competition from the other. I quote from Foster's piece:

'But with budgets being stretched across television, Fincham says he is willing to extend an olive branch to the BBC, to ensure that both broadcasters schedule their new dramas co-operatively, so viewers can watch the best that both have to… Read More

So the much-threatened, much-trailed NUJ strike at the BBC has finally gone ahead.

Millions of licence-fee payers went to work this morning with their levels of personal fury unusually low, having not had to listen to Thought for the Day – or, indeed, any of the rest of the Today programme. (When I spoke to them yesterday, the NUJ couldn't promise a picket line in Beijing, but still John Humphrys's promised reports from there were still taken off the air.)

It's unlikely that The World at One or other Radio 4 news programmes will make it to air, or Newsnight. But the BBC News channel remains on the air, looking remarkably unaffected, and Radio 4 is managing to get hourly… Read More

So from tomorrow night at midnight, BBC journalists will go on strike. Shades of Barbara Castle as Kirsty Wark warms her militant hands round the TV Centre brazier, etc.

Like all industrial disputes, this one will eventually come to an end. But like all industrial disputes, the question is: how?

BBC management can't really back down: they have made a revised, more generous offer about pension provision which they not only called 'final', but which everyone except the NUJ – including Bectu and non-unionised employees – have accepted.

But the NUJ equally can't really back down: they have a strike mandate, affirmed by a consultative ballot on the current offer.

So how do we get out of this then?

Well. Any solution needs to be able to be presented by both sides as some kind of victory. Yet neither can give ground on the substance of the dispute. So it seems to me there are… Read More

Some BBC workers are going on strike on Bonfire Night (Photo: Justin Thomas)

So. The unions are finally going out on strike at the BBC?

Well, one of them is. The National Union of Journalists. It will stage two 48-hour strikes, on 5, 6, 15 and 16 November.

Bringing BBC News to a grinding halt?

Probably. And on bonfire night!

Probably?

The last strikes that were called (and then called off), to take place during the Tory conference, had the support not only of the NUJ but of Bectu, the BBC's biggest union and the one that production staff tend to belong to. But now Bectu's members have voted in favour of accepting the BBC's latest offer, and won't be going out on strike. Mostly.

Ivan Lewis, the new shadow culture secretary, has written to John Whittingdale, the chairman of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committe, asking for the committee to launch an inquiry into the hastily-agreed BBC licence fee settlement.

An inquiry is a long-winded and formal process, involving the solicitation of evidence and views and culminating in a report. Whittingdale's committee is currently conducting one into arts funding, and it's easy to see the potential benefits there: the committee's conclusions could helpfully influence how things go forward.

The whole point about the BBC licence fee deal is that director general Mark Thompson and culture secretary Jeremy Hunt have already decided – behind closed doors, and without any interested parties getting to put their points of view – how things go forward.

Whittingdale quite rightly believes that a formal inquiry isn't appropriate in these circumstances, but I understand that he will call… Read More